Expatriate voters double down or deviate – but they never tip the scales

To get the big picture, “Swiss Review” took a closer look at the detailed results of the last 36 popular votes. In over a third of these votes – 14 out of 36 – the expatriate result was very similar to the domestic result, with just a few percentage points separating both. There was no significant difference. It is a simple and banal statement to make, but the “Fifth Switzerland” often thinks the same as Switzerland as a whole. We subsequently turned our attention to voting results showing a difference of five or more percentage points. This is what we found:

Doubling down

The “Fifth Switzerland” likes to double down. In 14 out of 36 proposals, it underscored the domestic vote by voting yes or no much more emphatically than the domestic electorate. This was particularly the case on social and ethical issues. For example, a much higher proportion of Swiss Abroad voted yes to paternity leave (+18.2 percentage points), the revised Transplantation Act (+16.2), an increase in the OASI pension age for women (+7.5), and “Marriage for all” (+7.1). The Swiss Abroad doubled down on the domestic no vote when they voted against the initiative to limit immigration: their rejection was a good 15 percentage points higher than the domestic result. They went with the tide – and then some – on all the above issues.

Deviating

A quarter of all votes – nine out of 36 – revealed a clear difference of opinion between domestic and expatriate voters, with a resounding yes in the “Fifth Switzerland” contradicting a no back at home – or vice versa.

Conclusion no. 1: the Swiss Abroad vote in three different ways

After evaluating the 36 votes that took place during the most recent legislative period, we can safely say the following: the Swiss Abroad know what they want (and what they don’t want), but they are not an unpredictable, exotic or contrary electorate. They vote in three different ways: they confirm, they double down, or they deviate. They double down on social and ethical issues, and swim against the domestic tide of scepticism on environmental proposals.

Conclusion no. 2: the “Fifth Switzerland” never tips the scales

Expatriate voters never tip the scales either way. And none of the 36 votes of the last four years proved to be an exception to this rule. Their voice is simply too weak. The registered voters of the “Fifth Switzerland” account for only around four per cent of the entire electorate. If their yes or no vote is emphatic, they can have a marginal influence on the overall result – about 0.5 percentage points. But the expatriate vote usually has much less weight than that: only about 0.2 percentage points on average, based on all 36 votes.

Conclusion no. 3: Toeing the government line

Government-submitted voting proposals often meet with more approval in the “Fifth Switzerland” than in Switzerland itself, it has long been argued. The results of the last 36 votes show nothing to suggest otherwise. However, if we take voting recommendations by the Federal Council as our starting point, Swiss at home and abroad both toe the government line more or less to the same extent. The domestic electorate rejected Berne’s recommendation in 12 out of 36 votes. Voters abroad did so 13 times.

Conclusion no. 4: the Swiss Abroad are gaining political weight

A meaningful bloc

Analysing the voting behaviour of Swiss Abroad is not as easy as you might think, primarily because the “Fifth Switzerland” is not a constituency in its own right. Technically speaking, expatriates vote in their home canton. But not every canton provides separate data on votes from abroad.

Aargau (AG), Appenzell-Innerrhoden (AI), Basel-Stadt (BS), Fribourg (FR), Geneva (GE), Lucerne (LU), St Gallen (SG), Thurgau (TG), Uri (UR), Vaud (VD), Valais (VS) and Zurich (ZH) are the 12 cantons that do provide separate data. These cantons constitute a sizeable contingent marrying rural with urban Switzerland and German-speaking with French-speaking Switzerland. They account for 60 per cent of the entire Swiss electorate as well as 60 per cent of registered voters in the “Fifth Switzerland”.

But most importantly: put together, this incomplete, mixed group of 12 tends to vote in much the same way as the whole of Switzerland. In 34 of the 36 federal votes during the most recent legislative period (2019–2023), there was minimal difference between the overall Swiss result and the overall result across these cantons – an average of less than one percentage point either way. Only two votes saw a significant divergence. Hence these dozen cantons represent a meaningful bloc, allowing for an accurate comparison of domestic and expatriate voting.

Methodology

Voting results – including those published by “Swiss Review” – usually include the overall result as well as separate figures for the expatriate vote. But this creates a slight discrepancy, because the overall result also includes the votes of the “Fifth Switzerland”. The “Swiss Review” editorial team therefore went back and adjusted canton-by-canton voting results by factoring in domestic votes and expatriate votes separately. This now gives a clearer picture of differences in voting behaviour.

The smallest difference between the domestic and expatriate result was 1.1 percentage points (“Strong healthcare” initiative in 2021), while the biggest difference was just under 22.8 percentage points (CO2 Act in 2021). For the purpose of identifying rough patterns in the voting behaviour of the “Fifth Switzerland”, results showing differences of at least five percentage points were taken into account (MUL, TP)